Constructing and validating a self-assessment scale for Chinese college English-major students’ feedback knowledge repertoire in EFL academic writing: Item response theory and factor analysis approaches

Using item response theory (IRT) and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA) approaches, this study constructed and validated a scale for Chinese college English-major students to self-assess their feedback knowledge repertoire in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) academic writing. It included two sub-studies: Study 1 – scale construction and Study 2 – scale validation. Study 1 was conducted within the IRT framework, which included the following six major steps: a) the preparation of item specifications following Yu and Liu’s (2021) conceptual framework; b) the preparation of the scale item pool; c) the field testing of scale items with Chinese college English-major students; d) the EFA analysis (to explore the factorial structure); e) the calculation of item function values; and f) the selection of items for the final scale. Study 2 was conducted within the IRT, EFA, and CFA frameworks, which included the following five major steps: a) the expert evaluation of the item appropriateness for construct interpretations of the final scale items (validity); b) the administration of the final scale to Chinese college English-major students; c) the EFA and CFA analyses (validity), d) the calculation of alpha coefficients (reliability), and e) the calculation of item, scale, and subscale information function values (reliability). The final 40-item scale was validated to have sound psychometric qualities for measuring Chinese English-major students’ feedback knowledge repertoire in EFL academic writing. Implications for EFL and English L1 researchers, and Chinese EFL teachers and their graduate students are discussed.